Perfect Timing had an impeccable sense of… well, timing. She always knew how much time had passed, at least until she forgot. She also had a nigh perfect sense of when to do something, like dodge an attack, as long as she knew she should do it. These were sometimes very helpful and often mildly handy, but mostly they were part of her. A pony’s cutie mark was an extension of their being after all, not merely another tool to achieve their goals, but almost a goal themselves.
It was for these reasons that Perfect never wished she had mastery of spatial recognition instead while being led to the dungeons. The castle may not have been able to shift like the badlands hive, but it was a tricky maze in its own right. She tried to keep track of where they were, but by the time they reached the dungeons she was thoroughly lost.
When they arrived at the dungeons Twilight lit her horn and her eyes were lit in a pale pink aura matching her horn. After a moment she conjured three crystals beside her, never losing her grip of Sandstorm and the knife at her throat. In a moment Perfect realized those were their beacons and quickly checked her vest pocket, only to find it empty.
One of the changelings stepped forward and Twilight handed them the beacons. Then the prisoners were herded into one of the cells. There was a flurry of activity, and when things calmed down 15 seconds later they were all in a locked cell large enough that they could all stand without touching, but without much spare room. On the other side of the bars sat Twilight with a slight frown on her face.
“I would like nothing more than to study you and your fascinating world immediately, but unfortunately your little stunt in the Everfree puts a lot of pressure on my schedule, so I’ll make this quick. Where is the Queen?”
“She’s in Tartarus, and there is no way you can get her back!” Minuette shouted. “Cerberus would turn your soldiers into chew toys!”
Twilight nodded. “Then we’ll have to stabilize the situation here before bringing her back.” She summoned a scroll and quill to her side and strolled out of the room, mumbling to herself under her breath.
“Minuette, are you sure we should have told her that?” Emerald asked.
“She was going to learn it soon enough,” Fluttershy said. “None of us would have held our tongues if she threatened to kill somepony again.”
“Wasn’t she an alicorn before?” Pinkie asked.
“Yeah, but she only became a princess after the changelings attacked in our world, and it had something to do with a spell about being a true friend, then she died and three hours later descended from the heavens as an alicorn in a glorious shower of light!” Minuette said, rising up on her hind legs and gesturing grandly at the end.
“You’re making that up,” Driver accused.
“No! It really happened! Ask Perfect and Sandstorm.”
“All I remember from that day is there was a lot of singing, and Twilight’s crew decided to try doing each other’s jobs for a day,” Perfect added. “That led to a starvation panic, a major storm hazard, and a bunch of angry ponies giving Inky a migraine. Then the next day we hear that Twilight’s a princess.”
“Rainbow once bragged that she earned her cutie mark again that day, but she didn’t go into much detail,” Sandstorm said.
“None of you actually know Twilight very well, do you?” Fluttershy asked.
“I was one of her first friends, way back before Ponyville. I bet we were even friends in this world.” Then Minuette frowned. “But here she’s evil.” She let out a gasp. “Does that mean that I’m evil here?”
“Or she just drifted away a little later here,” Starlight suggested. “You two weren’t very close, based on how your reunion went.”
“That’s true… Wait, how do you know that?”
Starlight blushed. “I was spying on Twilight when she went to Canterlot to make up with you.”
“I want to be indignant, but we were spying on Moon Dancer for about half that visit, so I guess I can’t be too mad,” Minuette conceded.
“Does anypony have experience with Canterlot dungeon security?” asked Emerald.
“I do,” Derpy answered. “There should always be at least two guards outside an occupied cellblock. This appears to be one of the group cells, slightly lower security used for nonviolent charges.” She pointed at the lock, which Perfect noticed had no keyhole, only a slight circular depression in the center. “Instead of keys they use the royal guard badges to lock and unlock the cells.” Derpy sat down and reached into her mane, pulling out a blue square of metal with a white sun. “I’m glad I decided to bring mine instead of leaving it with my armor outside Canterlot.” She reached out of the cell and pressed the badge into the depression.
After several moments she frowned and pulled back, sitting on her haunches. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”
Emerald set a hoof on Derpy’s withers. “It’s ok, you tried your best.”
“They probably changed the locks so they only open for changelings,” Perfect said. “Which might not be so bad, but our changeling is AWOL.” She shook her head and lowered it. “I think we lost.”
Pinkie stepped up onto the cot and faced the group. “Look, I know the changelings are super scary, and they’re a bunch of meaniepants who locked us up in their dungeon, but we can’t give up! My granny always told me the way to deal with your fears is to face them!”
“Yes, we tried that, and now we’re stuck in jail while Twilight’s doppelgänger figures out how to invade our homes,” Perfect answered.
“We’re not in those cocoons, so we can still try to do something. As long as we’re alive and well we can fight them! We can try to burrow through the stone, or loosen the bars. But if we give up we can’t do anything. You’ve got to keep trying! Not just for us, but for all our friends and family who are counting on us! It doesn’t matter how many obstacles jump in our way, we’ll keep our chins up and keep trying! Who’s with me?” As everypony stomped their hooves in support a stone sphere in a faint blue aura floated into sight outside the cell. It was slowly engulfed in a bright white light, and then it floated through the bars to Pinkie before the light faded to reveal her element. It was a necklace much like Fluttershy’s, the only difference being that the gem was light blue and in the shape of a balloon.
The door opened and a changeling stepped into the room, closing the door behind them. They faced the room with a smirk. “I thought that might wake up the rock.”
Perfect pushed her way to the cell door. “Inky, I’d recognize your voice anywhere, and if you want to keep it intact, then I suggest you open this door right now,” she growled.
Inky gulped. “I wasn’t pranking you, I just thought maybe Pinkie needed an opportunity to earn her element,” she said quickly, though she refrained from raising her voice. “No need to get angry.”
“Inky, you left without warning, specifically because you thought I wouldn’t allow it. I’m not angry about the prison therapy session, I’m ticked that you don’t trust me enough to confide in me. I thought we were past that.” Perfect’s voice started strong, but it started to break towards the end.
Inky averted her gaze and put her horn to the lock. In a moment the door gave a pop and Inky stepped back, allowing Perfect to step right in front of her. “We need to have a nice long talk about this, but not now. What do we need to know?” she said softly.
Inky turned to the others and cleared her throat. “They’ve stepped up security after they found you, so we can’t simply walk out the way we came, but I know another way out of the castle. Also, I grabbed these.” She lifted four of their beacons in her blue aura. “I replaced them with some regular gems I cast a fake aura on. They’ll seem like they have the right magic on them, but it won’t hold up to proper testing, so we’d better move fast. Any objections to heading out of the castle?”
“Did you find where the others are?” Starlight asked.
“Yes, and they aren’t in the castle.”
“Then let’s get going!” Pinkie shouted.
“Shh,” Perfect and Inky hissed.
“Sorry.”
Inky opened the door and the others all followed. After a few hallways they reached a dead end with a door to either side. “Where are we going?” Fluttershy asked.
“A cave deep in the mountains. The opening should be right here, if I’m remembering right.” She tapped a few places on the back wall, and it swung open, revealing a dark cave lined in crystals. “Yep, right where it was last time.”
“How long did the changelings know about this place?” Minuette wondered.
“Oh I didn’t learn it while I was with the hive. I was part of the team who explored this place after the wedding fiasco.” Inky shook her head. “Had to ask a friend of mine to pull a few strings, but I figured that I would be well qualified to check for clues.” She walked over to a cliff overlooking the cave and pointed with a hoof. “We’ll need to make our way across some chasms. Derpy, Fluttershy, Sandstorm, think you can fly ponies over?”
Sandstorm winced. “Actually, I hurt my wing when we fought some evil vines. I should be able to fly myself, but I don’t think I’m up for ferrying the others.”
“I can levitate a few ponies with me,” offered Starlight.
“That should work. If Fluttershy, Derpy, and I each carry somepony do you think you can carry the other… four, with Sandstorm flying herself?”
Fluttershy stepped in front of Inky and stared her in the eye. Inky sighed. “I broke you out of the dungeons, and I can prove I’m from their world. Is there something I can do to prove I’m not with the hive that I haven’t already done? I know I made some mistakes that I’ll be paying for, but not to you. Can we please… not have a problem?”
“I believe that you aren’t with them… But I don’t fully trust you yet. Maybe it’s not fair, but I’m sure you can understand my hesitance. However, I will work with you, and I hope that one day I’ll be able to trust you, and that it will be well placed.”
Inky nodded. “Fair enough, I’m glad you’re willing to give it a try.” She sighed. “You’re not the first to struggle with how they feel about me, and some of those I had known for years. I’ll carry Perfect… If that’s ok with you?” She looked to her deputy.
“I think I’ll fly with Derpy today, if you’ll have me?” Inky winced and Derpy nodded happily, not noticing anything amiss.
“I’ll fly with you,” Driver said.
“Hey Fluttershy, want to pair up?” Pinkie asked, and Fluttershy nodded.
Inky knelt down and let Driver climb atop her, then she stepped over to the edge. “This might feel a little weird, but it’s completely harmless,” she whispered to her passenger.
“What?” Driver asked. Inky shifted into a light brown coated pegasus mare with a reddish pink mane and deep blue eyes. On her flank she knew there was a tumbleweed. “Why transform?”
“Because I’ve hardly ever flown in my natural form for years. Way too easy to get spotted like that. And flying as a pegasus is not the same thing as flying as a changeling. If I were flying myself it would be fine, but I don’t think I could lift us both like that.” She spread her wings, tested that she had her full range of motion, and took off.
“Yeah, that makes sense. Is there any particular reason you chose this look?”
Inky nodded. “Because this is my usual pegasus form. I chose the appearance because it looks rather similar to Ponyville’s mayor, but not close enough for anypony to get suspicious.”
“Hmm… You normally look a lot like Derpy. Is she how you chose your unicorn look?”
“Yes. And the fact that even after I revealed myself as a changeling nopony seemed to notice means it was far enough off that nopony would get suspicious.”
Driver let out a grunt that Inky assumed was agreement. After a moment of silence he spoke again. “Perfect seems pretty mad about you leaving like that.”
Inky wobbled in the air for a moment, but quickly righted herself before they hit a wall. “I know,” she whimpered. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“I think she would have been hurt less if you had talked about it first.”
“I had to go!” Inky snapped back. “I split with the hive a long time ago, but they’re still my problem. I couldn’t let somepony else take the fall for that. Not my friends and especially not her.”
“And how do you think she would have felt if you had gotten hurt, or worse, trying to protect her? That she wouldn’t be ‘taking a fall’?”
“Just shut up!” Inky shouted. “If you just want to make me feel bad I’ll set you down and let Starlight take you the rest of the way.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to teach you.”
“Oh yeah? Teach me what?”
“To stop hiding from your closest friends. Keeping secrets like that is one of the best ways to lose a friend. Or somepony else.”
Inky sputtered. “Somepony else‽”
“I’ve never told you about Cinnamon Chai. Are you up for a story?”
“Why do I get the impression that it’s going to simultaneously make me feel sad and guilty?”
“Because you’re sharp,” he grunted. “But that wasn’t a no.”
“I suppose it wasn’t.” Inky sighed. “Fine. Lay it on me.”
“A few months back I met a mare by the name of Cinnamon Chai. She was a unicorn who owned a fancy little tea & cake shop. I thought she was too classy to want to associate with a carriage driver like me, so I pretended I was a royal guard. After we’d been seeing each other for about a month she happened to see me while I was working. That night she confronted me about it, and told me that she couldn’t trust me after that. I’ve tried talking to her, but she’s made it clear that I’m not welcome around her shop.”
Inky sighed. “And the moral of today's story is that lying to you friends hurts them, and I shouldn’t do it.”
“Just because it’s simple doesn’t make it bad advice, or easy to do.”
“I know.” Inky sighed again. “Thanks, I’ll try to keep this in mind.”
Up ahead Inky saw the tunnel they needed and flew in, landing far enough in so that the others could join them without problem. After Driver got off of her, Inky transformed into her unicorn form, since they would never be able to pass themselves off as changelings right now. When the others had all landed she cleared her throat. “I don’t remember the exact layout of these caves, so I propose that we return to our world and take some time to prepare before we return here. Are there any objections?”
“How long will you be gone?” asked Fluttershy.
Inky opened her mouth, but Minuette answered first. “On our side who knows, but we’ve got a machine that lets us speed up and slow down time. We’ll be back here lickity split, even if it takes days or weeks over there.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Ok then. Shall we wait for you here?”
Inky shook her head and passed one of the beacons to her. “Keep this on you and stay in sight of a reflective surface and we won’t have any problem finding you.” She gestured at the mirror-like crystals covering the walls of the cave. Starlight walked over and Inky handed her the rest of the beacons. Starlight nodded and took the beacons over to one of the larger crystals to use it.
Fluttershy walked closer to Inky as the others followed Starlight. “Why did you choose to disguise yourself here?”
“It’s not a disguise, this is who I am now. I’m always in this form unless I have a reason not to be. Spend a few years wearing a disguise and I can guarantee it will color your own perception of yourself.” Inky smiled. “Every time I looked in a mirror, this is what I saw. It’s really grown on me.”
Fluttershy smiled. “I’m sorry if I was a bit… harsh, when we met. I look forward to working with you.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Overhearing your discussion with Driver.”
Inky’s smile disappeared. “What? How much did you hear? Did anyone else?”
“Not everything, but enough to appreciate your struggle. And your deputy was closer behind you than I was.”
Inky grimaced. “She wasn’t supposed to hear that…”